Home
by idioticonion
Summary: Almost thirty years in the future, Doug-the-alien-bartender has sent Marshall Eriksen back in time. Robin wants in on the action. Crack/Romance set after 5.10 The Window


**Home**

"Send me back, damn it!" Robin demanded, leaning over the bar and fixing Doug with a withering glare. "You did it for Marshall. Do it for me?"

It was almost thirty years since Robin had set foot in this place, in MacLaren's bar, and it felt like only moments. It felt like coming home. The place was exactly the same - full of upwardly mobile twenty and thirty-somethings, the same old jukebox playing (although the tunes were now downloaded, automatically and wirelessly) and same old alien bartender, ageless, possibly immortal. A bartender who, it seemed, had the power to break the laws of space and time.

"Robin," Doug repeated patiently. "I've already told you. Marshall can only stay back in 2009 for one hour, and in that time he's promised not to change anything, or try and interact with any of you guys. I can't send you back if all you want is-"

Robin grabbed Doug's shirt and pulled him forward. She may be in her fifties (okay, her late fifties) but she was still a Canadian (well, half-Canadian, half-American) and she could still throw down.

"Doug, you do this for me! Don't keep me from…" She bit back a sob. "Just DO it!" She let the portly bartender go. "You owe me, man! Remember 2010?"

Doug gulped. "Sure. Sure I do."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Robin leaned forward again.

"Okay, okay," Doug relented, holding up his meaty hands in defeat. "Just… only one hour, okay. And don't let him know you're there? That'll be just as dangerous for Barney-"

Robin gave him a look and Doug fell silent. Dangerous? She'd take the risk just to see him again.

*--*--*

Barney looked exactly the same. Beautifully, painfully, wonderfully the same. Robin watched him shuffling down the sidewalk, head bowed, wearing those stupid overalls. Jesus, she'd completely forgotten that! It was shortly after they'd split up for the very first time. Robin leaned back against the brick wall of the brownstone and shook her head. How aweful that had been. She remembered how fiercely she'd denied to herself, the feelings, the heartache. She remembered how deeply she'd been in love with him.

But right now she couldn't allow her tears to fall, not again, not with this one chance that Doug had given her. One chance to say goodbye. So she strode down the street and bumped into him, deliberately, their shoulders slamming into one another with her coming off the worst. But Robin Scherbatsky didn't show weakness (which was probably a large part of her problem), so she simply whirled around, grinning.

When he saw her, his eyes were drawn down, from her face to her cleavage and up again. She raised a challenging eyebrow, one hand on her hip and his face lit up.

He never could resist a cougar, she thought, and her insides twisted. Holy crap, he really was a handsome devil in his youth. Handsome and arrogant and incredible in bed. He could have had any woman he wanted but he had to make it so hard on himself, always giving himself these stupid challenges. Those stupid overalls.

But even in stonewashed denim, hot damn he looked good!

"Where're you going in such a rush, handsome? That you've forgotten your manners?" She said with a wink. But rather than apologize, his grin widened. It was a little sad that she could practically see the cogs whirring in his brain, possibly weighing whether she'd go for him in the overalls, whether he could win his stupid bet.

Someone who bets against himself always loses.

But then he stepped into her, and she caught the barest trace of his scent in the air, and she was instantly whisked back thirty years to when she was young and he was her best friend and they were at the start of a long, painful, incredible journey.

She held back the tears, she held back the memories and she smiled as he spoke.

"Well I heard you were in town, baby, and I couldn't wait to meet you!" He said, with all the fire and certainty and the joy of life and youth.

She never could resist that smile.

*--*--*

Later, after she was pretty sure she blew his mind and he was an inch away from telling her that he loved her and almost-meaning-it, Robin checked the clock and realized that they had about five minutes left.

"Dude," she whispered softly, as her murmured against her breast. "When you tell Ted this story, don't make out like I'm some old lady, okay? I'm damn hot and I know it. You're lucky to have made it with me."

He purred as she stroked a finger down his spine then looked up at her, adorably puzzled. "Ted?"

Then she patted him on the arm and levered herself up, out of his bed. "Just going to freshen up," she reassured him, grabbing her pile of clothing.

But before she left, she kissed him, a chaste press of her lips on the cheek. She could warn him, she knew, make things different, change the future. But Doug had told her not to. And if she changed anything tonight…

So she quickly pulled away, and minutes later there was a tiny flash and she was gone.

*--*--*

"Not kidding dude," Barney laughed. "Total cougar. She was hot, and I mean awesomely hot. And in the sack… Jesus. Almost threw out my hip again. Cougars are deadly, man."

Ted laughed. "Yeah, she was sixty, man. That's disgusting. You should get therapy. No way is any challenge worth that."

"You saw Marshall's professor? Well this chick was, like, twenty times hotter. I mean, you would have totally hit that."

"Should have taken a picture, man," Ted laughed.

Barney raised an eyebrow, and handed Ted his iPhone, the other man whistling between his teeth in appreciation. Then Ted laughed.

"No way, that's photoshopped!"

"No really," Barney insisted. "Her tits really were that awesome."

Robin shook her head and muttered, "Gross." She hoped to god when she was that age she'd have a little more class than to sleep with Barney Stinson.

Thirty years away, future-Robin dabbed her eyes and smiled.


End file.
